Groupon University

Discussion in 'Business and MBA degrees' started by Kizmet, Feb 12, 2020.

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  1. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    SteveFoerster and innen_oda like this.
  2. Thorne

    Thorne Active Member

    This is kind of a weird way to go about it and not one I've heard from my dozens of contacts who are involved in the hiring process. Most of those contacts either look nothing up unless it sounds fishy (like a Doctorate on a position that doesn't need one) or only look up the school. Lets say you look up my WGU degree: BS IT - Security. It's no longer offered, so am I making my degree up? How about a school that closed 5 years ago? Or what about a school that offers an MS Applied Economics for two years and realizes it's losing money so shuts it down? I mean, dude, even my AAS degrees are no longer offered at my community college (a very respectable CC in my state), simply because they changed names and have no record of ever offering them except my transcript and degree or a catalog from 3 years ago that is harder to find than the sanity of Alex Jones.

    Looking up the school as I'd list on my resume, the thing my contacts would be looking up, you find that they are recognized by EQAR, accredited by ACSUCYL, have 215 published papers (as a non-research institution, on par with WGU whose global rankings are about the same), and a 91% graduation rate. They even have an active website with faculty and degree listings who can all be verified and a large, active body of alumni listed on LinkedIn.
    I've already talked to several of the hiring managers I know and precisely zero of them thought the degree was fake, unaccredited, illegitimate, or problematic. If you did things differently, fair enough, but I don't believe this is representative of the general practices in this space due to two manifestly true facts: schools close and sometimes degrees stop being offered.
     
  3. innen_oda

    innen_oda Active Member

    No hiring manager is looking for those things, nor do they really care. I'm doing a quick check to make sure that the qualifications you've put on your CV aren't bogus or deceptive.

    I've no doubt some of your best friends are hiring managers. However, I suggest you actually be one yourself to see the incredible amount of deception people will put on their CV. You become pretty attuned to knowing when something doesn't look right, and know how to quickly check your instincts.

    Funny someone upthread (you or someone else, can't remember) made some reference to American education and the illusion of superiority - if you're American, you're far less likely to be checked than someone from a few select nations, unless you have something unusual on your CV.
    Like, if someone had a list of US qualifications and then one Spanish one, it would stick out, and warrant a brief investigation.

    Strange that you say you've done 100s of hours of research for the ENEB degree (you do realise just how much time this actually is, yes?), and now you've apparently also googled your WGU degree, and still can't immediately see the difference in results, and instead you're going on about old degrees, and the various accomplishments of a given university (???).
    The former doesn't matter to me, and the latter . . . well, that's the stuff universities use to get YOU, the student, to give them money. There are some specific qualities each industry will look for which will help put you to the top of the list - this is why hiring managers tend to specialise in a specific industry. We will already know which schools are the top of our lists. When we google a school, it's because we've not heard of it before, or aren't especially familiar with that study focus. ENEB will be one of those schools.

    I don't care about the graduation rates of your school. No hiring manager does. Really.

    I can simplify this process for you, if it helps. Google:
    WGU BS IT Security. (You don't need to click on a single link. Just scroll through the first three, maybe four pages. Remember, you're thinking like a hiring manager here, and so you don't have a lot of time.)
    Now google:
    ENEB MBA

    Your results might be slightly different based on your location, but the difference in results will be immediately apparent. You can try it with several iterations of a degree name and school name (if I'm hiring someone, I won't have time to do this, but it might be good for you to know all the possibilities of what a hiring manager might see).

    For all but very niche positions, you're likely to be one applicant amongst dozens, if not hundreds. Your hiring manager doesn't care about you (yet). They care about two main things:
    - does your CV represent a candidate with the qualities and qualifications the company is looking for
    - is there anything on your CV that I can use to eliminate you as a candidate

    The first one, your ENEB degree (or really, any MBA) might help with. The second one is where you should have some concerns.

    I appreciate your skepticism of my knowledge of the field, but might suggest that you start being equally skeptical of marketing speak from people who want your money.
     
    Last edited: Oct 29, 2020
  4. Thorne

    Thorne Active Member

    No, I said I did "probably 100 hours" of research, something which I am confident in plus or minus 10 hours. Between reading about all the credit systems across the US, Canada, Europe, and ASEAN, trying to figure out what a propio is, looking at the legal and regulatory frameworks in the places I live or want to live, looking into the school, talking to people about the opportunity to get insight from people in industry, and so forth, I probably spent somewhere between 90 and 100 hours. You, on the other hand, apparently can't differentiate "probably 100 hours" from "100s of hours" yet purport to be an authority on hiring processes. Looks like I was right to be skeptical.

    Friend, I'm beyond tired of arguing with you. You come at me acting like I'm defective or something because I presented you with information collated from 12 of the first page websites when Googling the name of the university my degree will be issued from, not some marketing gimmick or a sales tactic. I looked up a name, found that it was legit and accredited, and you say "that's all irrelevant" because it doesn't fit your conception of your specific way of hiring people. We get it, you don't like the degree and are so skeptical about it that you want to demean me for looking up a school just like my HR friends said they would. Man, what a fool I must be. Hey, I'll tell you what, though I sure do appreciate the refined condescension that you feel the need to use as a tool to ed'm'acate us primitive layfolk in your fancy ways, but excuse me for no longer caring to interact with you.
     
  5. TeacherBelgium

    TeacherBelgium Well-Known Member

    I graduated with my second master's from ENEB / Isabel I.
    Master in big data and business intelligence.
    My average grade this time was only 8.9 out of 10, which was less than I hoped for. Either way I'm happy, can't deny that.
    Feel like I achieved something.
    Friday the 13th can be a good one sometimes. Doesn't have to be an unlucky day.
    Peace and love to all.
    Stay safe.
     
  6. cacoleman1983

    cacoleman1983 Well-Known Member

    Congrats..... 8.9/10 is good and is a B+/A- on the American scale. I'm actually glad you didn't receive a near perfect score because that would make ENEB sound like it has low standards. It must have been a challenging program.
     
  7. LearningAddict

    LearningAddict Well-Known Member

    Congrats!

    So the big question is: what was your average page length this time?
     
    Maniac Craniac likes this.
  8. TeacherBelgium

    TeacherBelgium Well-Known Member

    Haha that is such a badass question. Love it though :-D
    For most assignments 41 pages.
    I have tried to keep it on the lower side.
    Can't help it that I'm super creative and super talkative haha.
     
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  9. TeacherBelgium

    TeacherBelgium Well-Known Member

    In this regard I find the American grading system a bit weird.

    If I'm not mistaken everything under 60% is an F in the US.
    Here in Belgium the pass grade is 50%.
    So what I'm wondering is, if American students get an F for their assignment, how do they know if they are closer to that 60% or closer to 20%?
    I don't find GPA any clearer in that regard.

    8.9 is indeed not bad but I always strive for the best of the best. In that regard I was slightly disappointed. I had hoped for a 9.5 or so.

    I really did love the master's in big data and business intelligence though.
    I notice a heavy trend in the law branch : lawyer are obsessed with legaltech as of lately.
    Big data and business intelligence are somewhat adjacent.
    So I hope it will make my cv more appealing.

    Even though I obtained the MBA and this big data degree, my heart stays in the field of law.
    Think I would still prefer to work as a paralegal.

    Now I need to fully focus on the postgraduate in fiscal law and fiscal practice that I'm taking. Can't fail that one because it was much more expensive and opens much more doors than the ENEB degrees.

    Think I'm a bit knowledge addict and diploma addict :)
     
  10. cacoleman1983

    cacoleman1983 Well-Known Member

    You would knock a PhD or Masters by Thesis out of the park! It wouldn't be hard for you to synthesize or summarize everything into a dissertation at least for the literature review portion.
     
  11. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Usually you'll get both the letter grade and the percentage.
     
  12. Thorne

    Thorne Active Member

    Grazie!
    I'm effectively done with 4 programs myself: Supply Chain, Intl Trade, MBA, and Management, but am sitting on two of my papers to lengthen my tenure at the school. Just signed up for Big Data and am contemplating Project Management as a way to rack up more credits and more degrees that can add to my ongoing Renaissance Man style of CV.
     
  13. TeacherBelgium

    TeacherBelgium Well-Known Member

    You sound as eccentric as I do.
    Bystanders chiming in here will probably think we're either very ingenious or crazy :p
     
    Thorne likes this.
  14. TeacherBelgium

    TeacherBelgium Well-Known Member

    One day if I have the money for a really good programme I will go for a P.hd.
    It stays my dream :)
     
  15. Thorne

    Thorne Active Member

    Lol, of course we are ;) Only nutsos would do what we're doing, but I like accumulating qualifications and unique experiences. Those never expire :)
     
    TeacherBelgium and Mac Juli like this.
  16. Dustin

    Dustin Well-Known Member

    Is this to help with employer concerns over the length of your program? I'm not judging, I'm just curious, in case I do an ENEB program myself in the future.
     
    Thorne likes this.
  17. Thorne

    Thorne Active Member

    Basically. The diploma actually says, "for work completed from X to Y" and presents dates.

    I did my last year of undergrad at WGU in 3 months and it doesn't bug me because the date isn't placed on the front, and I am happy to sell this as a legitimate MBA and even proudly tell a story of how I did all the work in 3 months to friends and family (because all of it does check out), but I'd rather not have to debate validity with employers.

    Had enough issues with that when I had to justify...
    - Bachelor's in 3.5 years
    - One year of undergrad in 3 months
    - CCNP without any high-level networking experience
    - Why I abbreviated my long-winded AAS's name from "Advanced Cisco Systems Computer Networking Technology" to "Computer Networking" (with my alma mater's blessing)
    - Having 5 years of work experience by age 19 due to placing an entrepreneurial venture I started at age 14 on my resume (even though it was relevant, it got weird questions)

    that I'd like to avoid adding another thing to the list that can invite questions of honesty. I'm a bit of an eccentric dude who has visited several countries and I have a background in a bunch of stuff which I display proudly and explain openly, so a Spanish degree is reasonable based on my background, but a Master's degree in three months is a tough sell.
     
  18. TeacherBelgium

    TeacherBelgium Well-Known Member

    Solliciting for a job seems so much tougher in America than here in Europe. When I see what you guys can get judged for I'm super shocked how severe the American job market is for students.
    Like for example if you would put a non-accredited degree on your resume here in Europe, people would ask questions but they won't think immediately that you're trying to scam them. It seems that in the States as soon as you put a degree on your resume that is not perfectly accredited you might lose your entire chance at a job position for that.

    I'm surprised how difficult it is to sollicit for a job in the States.
     
  19. Steve Levicoff

    Steve Levicoff Well-Known Member

    I'm delighted to hear that. One need only look at recent threads here on DI to see how many in Europe are seeking quick and easy alternatives to normal degree requirements. From micro and mini credentials and the myriad of certificates about which we read, to propios and other non-real so-called universities, I would agree with the notion that you are "trying to scam them." If a degree that is "perfectly accredited" is the solution to that problem, I'm all for it.

    In short, if it ain't Oxford, Cambridge, Strasbourg, Tubingen, or Zurich (or similar actual university), I wouldn't trust a European school at all without making sure to my satisfaction that it is real and not mickey mouse. And if I ran into a candidate with any "three-month master's," I'd toss his résumé into the trash.
     
  20. TeacherBelgium

    TeacherBelgium Well-Known Member

    If I'm not mistaken your Ph.D wasn't accredited either. Did you leave it off your resume too then if I can be so curious?

    By the way : that works the other way around too.
    American non-known uni grads need to show an equivalency certificate here too.
    I'm aware that Americans deem themselves the center of the world but did you know we have actual, quality universities here in Europe that might be a little hard to grasp if you look at it from a non-American point of view?
    Here in Europe we try to give people an education that goes further than ethnocentrism. Maybe that's the ingredient to not condemn everything we can't grasp immediately.

    Have a wonderful day, doctor Levikoff.
     
    Last edited: Nov 20, 2020
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